The Society Wife by India Grey Page A

bentto kiss each of Scarlet’s cheeks. ‘Tom is a very lucky man. You look radiant tonight.’
    There had been times in the past eight weeks when Lily had managed to convince herself that her mind was exaggerating the power of Tristan Romero de Losada Montalvo’s attraction. During the blank hours of those sleepless nights the memory of his cool, moonlit perfection had taken on an almost mythical quality, mingling as she slid into restless, fragmented sleep with the story he had told her about the moon goddess and Endymion, until she could no longer distinguish reality from fantasy, dreams from memories.
    But she had exaggerated nothing, and the beauty of his chiselled angel’s face shocked her afresh. She flattened herself back against the stone balustrade, both dreading and burning for the moment when he would turn his attention to her, certain that the secret she carried within her body was written all over her face.
    â€˜Tristan!’
    Tom’s triumphant shout echoed from above, and Lily felt a mixture of frustration and relief as the spell of anticipation was broken. A second later Tom was clattering down the stairs towards them, a lopsided grin on his face. ‘You’re hardly over the threshold and already you’re kissing my fiancée. Have you no respect for the sanctity of marriage?’
    Tristan raised his hands in an elegant gesture of helplessness. ‘Haven’t I always said that you can’t hold a woman with a piece of paper?’
    â€˜Unless she wants to be held,’ laughed Scarlet slightly awkwardly as Tom put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. He dropped a kiss on her cheek.
    â€˜Sorry to drag her away, but there are about five hundred distant relations of mine up there demanding to meet her, so you have to release her—just for the time being.’ He started to move off, pulling Scarlet back up the stairs with him. Keeping her eyes fixed on the stone-flagged floor, Lily felt panic rising like flood water up from the soles of her feet at the prospectof being left alone with Tristan. ‘We’ll catch up later once the hordes have been satisfied!’ Tom called back from halfway up the stairs, then added with an airy wave of his hand, ‘Sorry, you two have met, haven’t you? At the summer ball?’
    Her heart was thudding wildly. He could probably hear it. God, he could probably see it. Heat bloomed in her cheeks as she steeled herself to look into his face. The face of the man who was going to be the father of her child.
    His expression was cool, distant, polite. And when he spoke the tone of his voice perfectly matched it.
    â€˜Have we?’

CHAPTER FIVE
    T HERE were people who enjoyed deliberately inflicting pain, as Tristan Romero de Losada Montalvo knew only too well.
    He was not one of them.
    However, when it came to women he was firmly of the belief that it was necessary to be cruel to be kind, and he had absolutely no intention of allowing Lily Alexander to think that there would be any kind of repeat of what had happened on that hot night in the summer. Or giving her any hint of how much the memory of it had troubled him afterwards.
    He watched hurt cloud her slanting, silvery eyes and tensed himself against a sudden rush of unfamiliar guilt. He had expected anger, indignation, a slap in the face—all of which he deserved, and had received from many women similarly slighted in the past. Lily Alexander’s quiet dignity unsettled him.
    â€˜Yes, we have,’ she said softly, almost apologetically. ‘I was the girl with…with the dove.’
    Instantly her words transported him back to the tower in the dusk and he felt as if the air had been forced from his lungs as he recalled the gentle murmur of her voice, the compassion that shone in her eyes. And the effect it had had on him.
    One-nil to Lily Alexander.
    He nodded slowly. ‘Of course.’ His lips twitched into a faint, reluctant